Panel sends water agreement to full Senate

BOISE – The multimillion dollar Nez Perce water agreement cleared its final committee on Friday after a full day of testimony Wednesday.

The Senate State Affairs Committee passed House Bills 152, 153 and 154 by an 8-1 vote. No additional testimony was taken at Friday’s hearing. The bill goes now to the full Senate.

The legislation puts the state’s endorsement on the 30-year agreement that calls for the Nez Perce to drop their claims to nearly all the water in the Snake River Basin in exchange for annual rights to 50,000 acre-feet of water in the Clearwater River, $80 million in cash and land and a pledge from the state and federal governments to provide tens of millions of dollars for fish habitat and other environmental improvements.

The agreement has already been approved by Congress and the Idaho House, but still must pass the Senate and be ratified by the Nez Perce Tribe to go into effect. In his State of the State Address in January, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne urged lawmakers to adopt the agreement.

Sen. Curt McKenzie of Nampa was the sole dissenting voice during Friday’s deliberation.

He acknowledged the bill “provides certainty in an area that is very important to agriculture and industry, and that was very valuable to them.” But he said it takes away too much from northern Idaho property owners.

During this week’s previous hearings, McKenzie said, he was swayed by a handful of ranchers and local government officials who felt like their rights were being trampled on.

“The issue for me is, do the benefits to the state outweigh the rights of the few? I think as a society we have answered, that we protect the rights of the few, even against the interest of society,” said McKenzie, who sponsored the failed anti-gay marriage amendment earlier this year.

Sen. Brad Little, R-Emmett, said he, too, was troubled by questions of equal treatment. But he came down on the other side of the conclusion.

“There’s a lot of legislation comes along where we have to balance the good and the bad,” he said. “To take a negotiated settlement and legislate it into law – with the combination of the tribe, the federal government and the state government – (this) is worth the gamble.”